Meet the Andersons

Hard to believe that the little guy will be a month old next week.  And, it is equally hard to believe that his due date was just a week ago.  Time does really fly.  It is one of those things that you don’t believe because the first few days seem to drag on, partially because they are wonderful and hard at the same time. But, I thought that I would start using this space to capture a few things, so I don’t forget them.   And, I have had lots of requests for new pictures, so I will try to oblige that as well.

This week had a lot of firsts for us.  We had our first bath on the first of the year.

I think I love this picture so much because this is a face we often get when Cade isn’t sure about what we are doing to him.  The bath started off just fine, but he wasn’t sure as we moved on and started getting him really wet!  You can see the whole event here.

We also had our first check-up this week.    Cade is back up to his birth weight plus a few ounces, so the little thing is slowly gaining weight.  I keep telling people that I really never thought that Joe and I would have to worry about having a little baby, but that is the way that it worked out.  Other than that we didn’t really find out much.  So, I guess no news is good news.  Cade is still a little yellowish from the jaundice that he had right after he was born, but we are still working on working all that nasty bilirubin out of his system.  I will definitely be happy when that is all done!

We are also working on getting on a schedule, and although I am scared that I am going to jinx myself, it seems to be going pretty well.  I think we figured out that the fussy baby that we were experiencing was actually overstimulated baby, so the last few days we have been a little more low-key with him, and he is sleeping better and is much happier.

So happy in fact, that we got our first hint of a smile yesterday, and I was lucky enough to have my camera out to capture it!  He isn’t looking at me in the one that I got, but this morning I got a full on both-sides-of-the-mouth smile that was pretty amazing!

This has been an awesome week, and I will keep posting pictures to the flickr site and recap them here each week!

I know lots of people post big long stories about all the details of their labor, but you guys really didn’t think that I would do that, did you?  All the really needs to be shared is that it was fast, relatively “easy” (as far as labor can be), and everything went the way I hoped it would – no drugs, etc!  And, the best part is that we have this beautiful little one now.

We have taken some pictures already, and I know that we will be taking more now that we will have a chance to play.  Until then, we will be posting pictures to my flickr account.  Feel free to check them out, and I will post again with updates soon!

My friend Bonnie put up a wonderful post the other day on her blog about what she was grateful for this holiday season, and she inspired me a little to share some of the things I am grateful about as well.  These are in no particular order, and some of them are probably a little obvious, but oh well.

1| I am the most grateful for the upcoming addition to our family.  What many of you don’t know is that Joe and I tried for almost two years, and we were getting closer to the point where we didn’t think it might happen. Now, with just five weeks left until the little guy arrives, I am so grateful that we didn’t give up.

2| I am grateful that Joe and I have such a solid relationship, despite deployments and other events that could have worked to pull us apart instead of push us together.  And, even though it did take us some time to be able to start a family, I am grateful for every second that we had together just focusing on the two of us.

3| I am grateful that we are back in an area that we can enjoy our family being so close, despite the fact that it means that we had to move away from some of them to get here.  This is the first chance in our married life that we have had the ability to drive ten minutes down the road and spend time with any of our family, and I am grateful for the new types of relationships that has cultivated, even though the last six months since we have been here have been some of the hardest for my family.

4| I am grateful that my mom and I have this time to spend together, particularly now when I need her advice the most.  Over the last few years, we have both worked to put aside past differences and celebrate them instead even when we don’t completely agree, and I am grateful that we did that work before Joe and I moved back here, so we can more fully enjoy this time now.

5| I am grateful for all the friends I have made over the last 10 years that have been my family while living in other states,  going through deployments, and enduring all the other perils of Army life.

6| And, however strange it may sound, I am grateful that I am a person that takes on too much.  I said many times before this semester started that this fall was going to be easy.  I actually thought I was giving myself a break.  And, needless to say, it has been anything but.  Teaching two classes and taking two classes while pregnant has not been an easy thing to do, but it reminds me that I can do it.

I am grateful that my natural inclinations allow me to take on the hard stuff.  Without it, I would not have told that West Point cadet that I wouldn’t stop harassing him until he agreed to marry me after five emails over ten years ago.  And, I wouldn’t have been able to teach consistently over the last nine years, something I truly love,  despite the moves, killer grading schedules,  and economic downturns. And, I wouldn’t have the family of friends I do because it does seem like I always pick out the hard ones!

I am grateful for picking the hard way, for the days when I know I can do it, but even more so for the days when I am not sure that I can.  So while I know the people who love me the most have the inclination to tell me to slow down, you will have to understand why I don’t always take the advice.  Pushing on has worked out for me so far!  And, as my best friend once told me, sometimes I need you to tell me “you can do it” instead of “it will be over soon”!

So, it has been forever since I posted any kind of an update here about all that’s been going on with the Andersons, but that is because lots of fun and exciting things have been going on that have kept us really busy.  However, this post isn’t about any of them.

After three weeks of non-stop vomiting, we had to make a decision about Cleo.  I thought I was okay with it until I called the vet to make the appointment to have her put to sleep.  And, then I lost it.  I won’t say it was an easy thing to do, but we do know that it was the right answer.

Two weeks ago when we took her to the doggie emergency room she weighed a mere 87 pounds, which was very thin for her.  Today, when we took her in, she weighed 74.  She wasn’t doing well, and we know we made the right decision.  But, it was an awful decision to have to make.

And, I fear how some of us are going to take it when he figures everything out!

She was a great dog, and we will miss her tremendously.  Great Danes, like most big dogs, have a horrible life expectancy, but they are wonderful and worth it every time.  I am sure this won’t be our last, but she will always be our first!  We just wanted everyone who loved her as much as we did to know what was going on.

Pictures to follow soon!

Everyone has a name for their unborn child.  Soon-to-be-parents realize quickly that you need a way to talk about your baby.  And, most that I know refrain from calling the baby any particular name before they are sure what the sex of the baby is.  So, you need a good non-gendered nickname.  I have heard lots of peanuts, sweetpeas, and my best friend and her husband called their first baby the Beast, a name which stuck.  So, Joe and I discussed what to call the baby, knowing that this might be an important decision (just ask the Beast!).  We settled on “Minimus.”  Get it?  Like mini-us…  We think we are so clever!

We like it because it gives us a way to talk about the baby in public, and other people don’t necessarily know what we are talking about.  And since we are trying very hard not to be that couple that gushes about the new baby throughout my pregnancy, it works well.

I told you all of this because you will see that Minimus has a new little widget over on the right sidebar on the blog now.  However, instead of just posting this and thinking that other people might actually know what it means, I wanted to share the joy of the weekly baby updates we receive from Baby Center.

Shortly after we found out I was pregnant, I signed up for the Baby Center email updates that tell me a little bit about what’s going on with the baby every week.  It is a pretty cool service, and we like the weekly breakdowns and information, but there is a unique quirk to this particular site’s updates.

Every week they compare the size of the baby to a vegetable or piece of fruit to give you a way to think about how big the baby is.  And, this has become quite a joke.  My brothers ask me all the time what the baby is this week.  And, I thought that it would be a fun way to keep everyone updated about my progress without some of the other slightly creepier options I have seen out on the interweb.

So, this week I am 18 weeks pregnant, and Minimus is the size (height-wise) of  a bell pepper. Hence the image in the sidebar.  And, for those of you that are so inclined, if you click on the image, you can go to the site that explains all that is going on this week with Minimus.

Hope this is a fun little update for those interested!

Welcome to our new blog.  What better way to get started with all the fun family stuff to share than paint colors!  Really, everything is going great with the baby.  We had an ultrasound a few weeks ago, but the pictures didn’t really turn out.  The big day to watch for is the 18th of August.  That is the day we will have the fancy ultrasound, and we are likely to find out what we are having.  We are hoping for a healthy baby!  Beyond that, we will just take what we can get.

So, the real family news right now is that Joe and I have an offer in on a house in Woodbridge, VA.  It was an awesome find, although somewhat sad for the previous owners.  On the property, there used to be a 1960s rambler.  A family bought it, tore down the house to the foundation, and then got foreclosed on.  A development company bought the foreclosure and built a spec home.  It is a great house, and we will share pictures when we get things unpacked and organized (will be a few months).  For now, until we close, I am contenting myself with deciding on furniture placement and painting.

There are a few quirky things about the house, and one is the paint.  Right now, the whole house is roughly this color (or a little brighter).

And, actually we really like this color.  It is roughly the color of our living room in Kansas.  But, as a whole house, it is a little too much for us.  So, we will probably leave the baby’s room yellow, and we will be painting the rest of the house.  Some rooms right after we close (August 14), but most of it we will work on over time (but, hopefully before the baby gets here).

There are a few colors that we quickly decided on.  Like, this one will be the color of most of the bathrooms.  This decision was really made out of necessity.  This was the color of the kitchen and hallways in the house in KS, and we have three or four gallons of paint left over.  So, we needed to use it somewhere.  It is a great neutral.

We also quickly decided on the color that we are going to use on the main floor of the house (this will of course make more sense with more pictures).  We like this because it is a nice alternative to white, but it is still neutral.  Contributes to the cozy cottage look that I typically go for!

Then, as an alternative to too much brown in the house, I thought something soft and blueish would look great in the basement/rec room area.  So, we are going for this great blue.

And, the guest room will likely be another shade of the brown, although I might look for something more fun if I decide we have too much brown already going on.

One of my favorite colors we have already decided on is this purple for the powder room.  As a select few of you know, our master bathroom in our last house was a great purple.  This one is a little different, but no less awesome!

And, this is where the indecision kicks in.  Feel free to chim in if you are interested!  Our first decision to make will be what to paint our master bedroom.  It is a really cool room: big with lots of light.  So, we should be able to get away with a darker color in there, and I think it will look awesome with our white bed frame.  These are the two front runners.  I think I like the darker/grayer of the two, but I don’t know if that is just because I am revolting against all the brown I was drawn to when I was grabbing colors.

And, then there is the question of our bathroom.  One of the other quirks about this house is that it was obviously designed by a boy.  The master bathroom has a black tub, but really cool tile.  So, I wanted to pick up something out of the tile.  I am not sure if I succeeded, but these are the two that we are trying to decide between.  Either way, it can’t stay yellow.

However, perhaps the largest painting dilemma I have is with the greens.  I would really like to paint the family room off the kitchen one shade of green, and I would like to paint the amazingly good deal of a kitchen table I got at this gross little thrift shop the other day another shade of green.  But, there are so many great greens.  Picking out paint colors I realize that I only really like browns, greens, and a few blues.

Aren’t they all fabulous!  I am thinking about the top two for the family room/table combo, but I am not sure that I will be able to avoid painting something geranium leaf.  I love it so much! That may actually end up being the guest bedroom, although I do have a great new red duvet cover from Ikea that is red that I couldn’t use in the guest room if I did that!  Oh, the dilemmas.

So, that is what I have been up to lately.  And, I have been forcing Joe to listen to me drone on about all of this.  He is being very patient with me!  I will post more stuff about the baby, etc when we have more to share, but for now, there are likely to be more posts about the house plans.

**Note: Thanks to Nicole Balch from Making it Lovely for giving me the idea to do this.  And, all the colors are Behr paint, which I would argue is the best paint ever!